Beckett's hat

Abstract

This text seeks occasion to think language, me­aning, and metaphor in the works of Samuel Beckett. Special attention is given to the interplay between the author’s resolute determination to evade all figurative language and his equally strong disposition to employ strategies of symbolic teasing: his texts do not cease to invite figurative readings, only to systematically evade, frustrate, suspend them. This is often taken as a sign of the author’s unmitigated linguistic skepticism – alle­gedly, he is evincing the absence of any hors-text, revealing language’s ultimately self-referential character. This paper searches for a different way of claiming Beckett’s legacy, one in which language emerges as not referential at all in na­ture – not even self-referential. With this in mind, I will address what I take to be one of Beckett’s prominent symbolic provocation devices, namely the recurrent emphasis placed on certain objects throughout his works. I will focus on the hat. I will show that Beckett’s hat provocations give us occasion to see the relationship between words and objects, the literal and the metaphorical, in a way that shows striking affinities with perspec­tivism, as this notion is elaborated by Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro in his reflections about Amerindian thought and life.